Find your class by classifying each item you sell, not your business as a whole. Write down every product and service, match each one to the current WIPO list, then group them. The Department of Industry (DoI) needs a separate application for each class, so that list becomes your filing plan.
Key takeaways
- You nominate the class. The Department examines your choice, but it does not pick one for you.
- Classify the item, not the industry. "We are a food company" is not a class; "chilli sauce" is.
- Nepal is not a party to the Nice Agreement. It applies the list under its own power in Sec. 18A of the Act.
- Class headings are summaries, not definitions. The alphabetical list of goods and services is the real answer.
- Services are thin in Nepal's published record: 12,143 service marks against 59,388 goods marks.
- Check the edition. Legal services moved out of Class 42 into Class 45 in the ninth edition, on 1 January 2007.
Who decides your class — you or the Department?
You do. The application form asks you to state the class and describe the goods or services, and that statement is what the examiner works from. Getting it wrong is your risk, not the Department's oversight.
The examiner then checks whether your description genuinely belongs in the class you named, and whether anything confusingly similar is already on file in it. A description that does not match its class invites a query, and a query adds months.
Class selection is therefore the first real decision in a filing, ahead of logo artwork or paperwork.
Is Nepal actually part of the Nice Agreement?
No, and this catches out advisers who assume it is. Nepal has not joined the Nice Agreement, the Madrid System, the Patent Cooperation Treaty or the Hague Agreement. Its live treaty record at WIPO is short.
What Nepal does is apply the classification domestically. Sec. 18A(1) of the Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 lets the Government of Nepal classify goods and services by a notification in the Nepal Gazette, and the Department works to the international list under that power.
The practical effect is the same 45 classes. The difference is that your rights come from a Nepali registration alone.
Where does the class list come from, and which edition?
The list is maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization and revised regularly. Items move between classes, and old copies circulate online for years after they stop being correct.
Legal services are the clearest example. They sat in Class 42 for decades, and moved into Class 45 only in the ninth edition, which took effect on 1 January 2007. A law firm working from a 2002 list would file in the wrong class today.
So treat any class list that does not state its edition as unreliable. Read the current edition on the WIPO site, or use a tool that is kept current. For a plain-English tour of what each of the 45 classes covers, read that first.
How do you find the class for one product?
Work item by item in plain language, and resist the urge to classify the company. Six steps cover almost every case.
- Write the item as a customer would say it. "Instant noodles", not "fast-moving consumer goods".
- Decide thing or activity. Things sit in Classes 1–34, activities in Classes 35–45.
- Search the alphabetical list, not the headings. Our NICE class finder searches the item list directly.
- Check an awkward item twice. The AI classifier is useful for descriptions that do not match any obvious entry.
- Repeat for every line you sell. Keep a simple two-column sheet of item and class.
- Group the sheet. Each distinct class becomes one application at the Department of Industry.
What if your product is not on the list?
Most are, in some form, under a name you would not have guessed. Searching a near synonym usually finds it: "momo" may not appear, but "dumplings" and "prepared meals" will point you to the right place.
When nothing fits, classify by the closest analogue and describe the item precisely in the goods statement. A clear description that sits in a defensible class is far better than a vague one in a flattering class. Our goods and services search shows how comparable Nepali marks worded theirs.
Does the class heading decide what you are protected for?
No, and this is the single most common misreading. The heading is a short summary of a class's theme. Your protection comes from the goods and services you actually list in your application.
Class 35 is the advertising, business-management and office-functions class, and retail and shop services are classified there. Filing there does not protect the products on the shelves. A snack maker who files only in Class 35 has protected the shop, not the snacks.
How many classes do you really need?
As many as you genuinely trade in, and no more. Sec. 18A(2) requires a separate application for goods or services in different categories, so each extra class is another filing, another examination and another renewal date.
Filing broadly "to be safe" buys little. Sec. 18C allows the Department to cancel a trade mark that has not been put to use within a year of registration, so classes covering products you never launch are weak as well as costly.
Each accepted class also produces its own registration certificate and its own seven-year renewal term, renewable in further seven-year terms. Four classes means four certificates and four dates to keep.
A sensible test: would you stop a competitor using this name on that product today? If not, the class is aspiration, not protection.
Which classes are busiest in Nepal?
Nepal's published record is heavily weighted towards goods. Of the marks in IP Sewa's archive, 59,388 sit in the goods classes and only 12,143 in the service classes — barely one in six.
A service business often finds its class far quieter than it feared, while a food or cosmetics brand enters a crowded field where a distinctive name is essential.
What does a wrong class look like in practice?
It looks like a certificate that nobody can use. The registration is real, the name is yours, and it covers something you do not sell.
| Business | What they often file | What they usually need |
|---|---|---|
| Café that bags its own coffee | Class 43 only | Class 43 and Class 30 |
| Clothing label with a shop | Class 35 only | Class 25 and Class 35 |
| Mobile app with a web service | Class 9 only | Class 9 and Class 42 |
| Skincare maker selling online | Class 35 only | Class 3, plus Class 35 for the shop |
| Dairy selling milk and ghee | Class 30 | Class 29 for dairy products |
| Law firm | Class 42 | Class 45 since the 2007 edition |
What happens to your class after you file?
It becomes public. When the Department accepts a mark it publishes the entry in the Industrial Property Bulletin, and the class is printed there beside the mark and the owner. That is how rivals in your field discover you.
Publication also starts the opposition window under Sec. 21A, during which a third party can object to the entry. Owners of earlier marks watch their own classes precisely so they can act in that period, which is another reason a well-chosen class is worth the care.
An unopposed filing is commonly described as running about 12–14 months end to end, and 6–8 months only in the smoothest cases. A class the examiner queries adds to that, which is the practical cost of guessing.
Foreign applicants reach the same point through a Nepali agent appointed by power of attorney. Give the agent your item-by-item list rather than a company description, because the class statement is drafted from it.
What happens if you file in the wrong class?
Two outcomes, neither good. The examiner may raise a query, which delays the file while you amend the description. Or it passes, leaving you with a registration that does not reach your real product.
Nepal is first-to-file, so the gap is the danger. A competitor who files the same name in the class you skipped can build a legitimate claim there while you hold a certificate next door.
Can you add a class later?
You can always file a fresh application in the new class, and Sec. 18A(3) expressly contemplates a mark registered in one category being registered in another. What you cannot do is backdate it.
The second filing takes its own date, so the protection gap between the two is real. Where a product launch is already planned, file both classes together rather than waiting.
Which tools shorten the job?
Start with the class finder for straightforward items and the AI classifier for awkward descriptions. Then test the result against the register: browse what is already published there with search by NICE class, and search your proposed name inside it.
Before you commit, run the name across the whole trademark database. A clean class choice and a conflicting name still ends in a refusal, so the two checks belong together. A full written clearance opinion is what our trademark search and clearance service produces.
What does the Act say about classes?
Less than you would expect, which is why practice matters so much here. The Patent, Design and Trade Mark Act 1965 never uses the word "Nice". It says "category", and it says it twice, both in Sec. 18A.
Sec. 18A(1) gives the Government the classifying power. Sec. 18A(2) requires separate applications across categories. Sec. 18A(3) allows the same mark to be registered in another category. Everything else — which list, which edition, how an item is described — comes from Department practice rather than statute. The consolidated text sits on the Nepal Law Commission site, and filing guidance on the Department of Industry site.
What are the common mistakes when picking a class?
Almost all of them come from classifying the business instead of the item. The rest come from trusting a summary over a list.
- Reading only the class heading and never the alphabetical entry for your item.
- Using a class list with no edition date, years after an item has moved.
- Filing Class 35 for a product brand because the company "sells things".
- Filing ten classes for a business that trades in two.
- Choosing the class before checking whether the name is free in it.
- Assuming one registration can list several classes. Sec. 18A(2) says otherwise.
A classification that goes wrong: an example
Imagine a Lalitpur workshop making handmade leather bags, which also runs a small showroom. The owner files in Class 35 because the showroom feels like the business. This is an illustration, not a real case.
Two years on, a competitor sells identical bags under a near-identical name. The registration covers retail services, so the strongest argument available is about shops, not bags. The bags themselves sit in Class 18, which nobody claimed.
A second filing fixes it going forward, but it takes a later date and leaves the earlier period exposed. Ten minutes with the item list would have produced two applications instead of one.
In short
Classify items, not ambitions. List every product and service, look each one up in the current edition, group the results, and file one application per class at the Department of Industry. Check the register in each class before you commit the name.
If the list is long or the items are unusual, this is worth an hour of professional attention rather than a guess. Our trademark registration service sets the classes, drafts the goods statements and files them together.
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Not sure whether your product sits in one class or three? Contact our team with a plain list of what you sell and we will tell you which classes it really needs before anything is filed.
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